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Only 5 weeks until i am out of NY for 4 months, i can't wait... it's going to be so nice to be gone from this place for a while!! Not much is really going on up here right now, winter is definitely approaching fast. it's starting to get pretty chilly up here, with highs of about 65 or 70, which is really nice. Besides school i'm just trying to figure out how one prepares for such a long time at sea?

well, i won't keep you too long... hope everyone is having fun back home!!!

I officially found out what ship i will be spending the next four months on!! I am going to be on the APL President Jackson, a container ship that is 902 ft. long, which is about three football fields long.

So where will i be going? I depart NY on November 5 and will travel to Dubai, Sri Lanka - India, Port Kelan - Malaysia, Singapore, the Suez Canal, The Straits of Gibralter, and the Gulf of Aden... to go to Singapore and back will take around 60 days... i will do two runs, which equals to 112 days out at sea. This is about the closest you can come to taking a ship, who has a scheduled route, around the world. Lots of picture opportunities!!

This is the Route to Singapore via the Atlantic Ocean. (Click to see bigger)

This is the route from singapore back to U.S. via Atlantic Ocean. (click to see bigger)

Today was a jam packed day... the day began at 5:30 am, the time i woke up, to prepare for our Firefighting field trip. In order to go out to sea you must be qualified in basic firefighting skills. We have already taken the class and now it was time to do the practical skills. Me and my 17 section mates of 3T1 took a charter bus to a small town in rural New Jersey. They have a firefighting school there that specializes in maritime fire safety. Once arriving we sat through about a 20 minute class and then it was time to pick out our safety gear.

In no time we were out on the hoses spraying things down to get used to the pressure in the hoses and the types of sprays. As soon as we felt comfortable, a fire was lit in the engine room of the mock ship. With our full gear and air devices (SCBA, which is the mask we are wearing in the picture below) we took turns entering into the engine room (2 at a time) to put out the fire. Man it was hot in there, it was pretty neat go in and see what big fire is like. Once this activity was done we practiced in spraying foam on oil fires, using fire extinguishers to put out kitchen fires, and much more. It was a very educational day and definitely a lot of fun... I can thank all of you taxpayers for all of the fun we had!!! haha

This weekend was absolutely B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L, we just had to get out and enjoy it. Saturday we had inspection followed by a football game. We decided once liberty commenced to go to Roosevelt Field Mall about 20 minutes from Great Neck. It is a HUGE mall and has every store known to man. I had a good time with my friends and got a new pair of tennis shoes.

Sunday i slept in then went to TGI Fridays later in the day... which is always a nice way to end the weekend. Thats about it. Tomorrow its off to Firefighting school in NJ!!! I'll let you know how it goes.

As lovely as this academy is (sarcasm) they somehow always seem to have trouble with their internet systems... it has been so slow lately, but hopefully its back and working fine now.

It was "Cookie Cafe" day, the first one of the year at that!! Cookie Cafe is always nice, its a little reminder of home with all kinds of homemande cookies sent from the parents associations. Sometimes there are parents there to help cook too. Yesterday USMMA had a celebrity family here, the Heinemann family. They cooked lots of cookies and brought milk for the M/N at the academy. The number cookies that cooke cafe had for the day, around 14,000!! crazy, but boy were they good.

The picture above is just one example of a batch of cookies sent by one family!

Thank God its friday, and the week is finally over! Boy what a long week

I got the opportunity to go with one of my best friends, Heinemann, to New Jersey... and let me tell you NJ is a lot prettier than they ever get credit for. Within 15 minutes we were in the moutains in a state park while 15 minutes in the other direction gives you the urban life. Its a very neat place. We ate dinner saturday night at a very good italian food restaurant. Then on sunday morning i had my first North East bagel... apparently i haven't lived unless i have eaten a bagel and it was very good. We spent much of the day driving around and also at the Firehouse that Heinemann is a part of. There was a great group of people there that i was fortunate enough. Just before having to come back the Heinemann family treated me with steak, fries, and homemade cookies. They were SPECTACULAR! thanks to Heinemann for a really great weekend!!!!

Also i would like to say thanks to him for many of the pictures of his that i have used on this blog.

This weekend happened to be a very awesome weekend. It was parents weekend and Coast Guard weekend. Our football played the USCG Academy, their academy bussed in about 700 cadets and we had all of our school plus the parents. It was a very packed game and one of the best i have seen here. It went into double overtime and we won!!! GO USMMA

This upcoming weekend is parents weekend for the class of 2013, i just can't beleive it has been one entire year since it was my parents weekend. Parents weekend means that 2013 will be sworn in by the Commandant of the Coast Guard into the Naval Reserve, they will get a little more freedom, but not a whole lot.

Not much is going on today, we had very beautiful weather today, which is always nice. And the Regiment had a BBQ while the soccer team played a game, so thats always a nice change.

As i write this blog, a song came on "Taking Chances" by Celine Dion, and i think that it perfectly describes what many Mishipman have done at the this academy. We are all taking a chance, and hopefully it all works out!

I'm back at the Academy now, after a nice three day weekend in Reston, Virginia. Reston is about 30 minutes outside of Washington D.C.. I went down there with Adam Wise, a good friend of mine and my sea year partner. We rode the bus down there, which was supposed to take about 4 hours... but, due to one of the NYC's tunnels being closed we had to travel 1.5 miles south which in NYC traffic took 2.5 hours!! and then just when we were about to go in the tunnel, we hit a car, then we got back in line for the tunnel. Luckily that was the only bad luck we had.

On Saturday we went canoeing down the Patomac River. We went down the river for about 7 miles. We saw some deer and other wildlife, it was a very pretty scene with all of the trees and bends in the river. It would have helped if we would have had a little more current though.

On Sunday, i got to go to the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum!!! Something i have wanted to do for a long time now. It was AMAZING, to say it in simple terms. It was a large hangar filled to the brim, literally with airplanes... they even had an actual retired Space Shuttle, along with a 164-ft mock control tower which over looked Dulles airport.

The weekend was also filled with some good home baked meals, relaxing, movie watching, and talking with the Wise Family. They are great people and I am glad i got the opportunity to spend Labor Day Weekend with them.

It's off to Virginia for the Labor Day weekend. I am heading down there with a good friend of mine. It's going to be a nice needed break away from the Academy. I hope everyone has a good weekend off of work and gets a chance to have fun and relax a little.

Today was rather different than any average day at Kings Point. Me and 11 other guys had to go to the City this morning to pick up our TWIC card, it is a Transportation Worker ID card which allows me access to any U.S. port. A pretty important card.

We went to the Staten Island Ferry Terminal to do this, which on the very southern part of Manhatten. That didn't take long, so we spent some extra time in this area. The World Trade Center was only a few blocks a way. So a few of us decided to visit the 9/11 Museum and Memorial. It was such a touching museum, one of the best I have ever been to. It is next to the World Trade Center fire station. It had all of the missing people posters on a wall, and 1000's of pictures of people who died in the tragedy, along with many quotes from that day. Many artifacts were there, it was just overwhelming to see all of this. It really makes an impact on your life and why you should cherish every moment. I recommend that if you ever get the chance to come to NYC you visit this museum.

It is September 1, and up here in New York it is almost as if summer completely went away for this first day of the month. Most of the day it was around 70 degrees, seemingly perfect weather. It always puts me in a good mood when there is good weather up here, because it doesn't happen all too often.

Today my car was sold, i no longer have the Crossfire that carried me for so many miles around Texas. It's pretty sad to see it go, but it would be pointless to keep it for the next two years with no one to drive. It was a great car... goodbye Crossfire.